Computerized systems aid conditions assessment.

Keeping buildings in good, safe condition can be an elusive goal, despite the best intentions. Especially where a number of buildings are involved, tracking the condition of structures and systems, prioritizing needed maintenance and repairs and developing a plan for action is typically a haphazard and imprecise undertaking. Now, however, computer software systems are available that make these tasks more manageable.

For starters, new computerized condition assessment systems automate the field data collection process, greatly improving the accuracy and transmission of condition information. Once data from the field has been collected, it can be integrated with other software products through the use of advanced visual facilities management programs, vastly enhancing the data's usefulness. Used together, these systems can make a real difference in the building management process.

Automated condition assessment systems have at their core lightweight, portable pen computers which are carried into the field to collect and organize condition data. Inspectors use a stylus, rather than a keyboard, to enter numeric, character or image-type data. The data is entered onto electronic forms which have been developed on the pen computer platform and are tailored to the assessed facility.

BCAT, the building condition assessment system developed by WASA/Technical System Integration Group, is one of the most advanced products currently available. It structures deficiencies in a hierarchy of systems, subsystems, and components likely to be found in a wide range of building types. Integrated reference databases provide access to thousands of physical plant deficiencies and recommendations.

Intended for use by building owners, facilities managers, architects, engineers and maintenance personnel, BCAT is extremely easy to use. Pop-up pick lists, check boxes, radio buttons and other input aids simplify data entry and promote uniform results. To select deficiencies and recommendations, inspectors simply stroke the pen over an autofiltered cascading picklist; when text must be entered for field written notes, a pen-sensitive pop-up keyboard is employed.

Photographs of a building can be easily incorporated into the field data. The assessment information form provides a dialog that allows the inspector to catalog up to four photographs for each deficiency he encounters. Image files are downloaded from camera disks to the desktop hard drive and given field names that coordinate with the numbers assigned by the inspector in the field.

To expedite the assessment process where buildings have very similar or identical floor plans on multiple levels, or similar locations that replicate throughout the building, BCAT includes extrapolation calculations. Sample deficiencies may be taken at one or more locations and, depending on the quantities found in the samples, extrapolated for remaining areas. This analysis is performed at the desktop.

Enhanced CAFM Capabilities

The benefits conferred by BCAT are enhanced by sophisticated new hybrid facilities management software that combines vector-based drawing environments with fully relational database engines. WASA's system, called VFMS (Visual Facilities Management System), can import assessment data collected in the field with BCAT, enabling users to work with that data in a familiar Windows environment.

VFMS creates an icon for each piece of data and automatically places it in the proper location on relevant drawings. An inoperative pump component, for instance, might be designated with a red dot. Using location and equipment numbers in BCAT, VFMS "sends" that dot to the appropriate physical locations and equipment in VFMS drawings.

A system user can go into the deficiency layer of a drawing and find that dot. Clicking a button enables him to see all the information in the system that is related to that pump component. By the same token, a blue dot indicates that the remedial work is in progress, while a green one indicates that deficiency was inspected and the information is archived for future reference.

Importing BCAT data into VFMS brings it alive visually, making it easy to see how deficiencies relate to one other. Opening a deficiency layer over an equipment layer, for example, might reveal that a leak is located directly over air handling equipment, requiring immediate action, or is dripping harmlessly over empty space and can take lower repair priority.

VFMS provides a link to all sorts of information in addition to BCAT data. Building inventory information, operation manuals, warranties and lease contracts can be accessed in their native format and managed in the visual, Windows environment. The system also provides a hook to other software products, such as a spreadsheet or word document, providing a link to still more data records. VFMS is, in essence, the mothership carrying all the information necessary for successfully developing and managing a building maintenance program.

Ralph Heiman Managing Partner Wank Adams Slavin Associates